Hundreds of people gathered in Rome on Sunday evening for a special event. In the photos and videos taken from the event, participants dressed in black raise their hands in Nazi salutes without hesitation.
In the video posted on the message service X below, you can see and hear how the salute is led by shouting “For fallen comrades!”. To this the crowd responds three times by shouting “On the spot!”.
According to the Reuters news agency, this is typical of Italian neo-fascist events.
The commemoration is an annual event. This time in Italy, people are wondering how it is possible to keep such an event without anyone interfering.
This story tells the background of the case that is shaking Italy.
The event was a memorial event
Supporters of the extreme right and neo-fascists will meet on January 7th for a memorial service in front of the headquarters of the former neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiana (MSI) on Acca Larenzia street.
The event honors the memory of three late far-right young men.
Two of the youths, Franco Bigonzetti and Francesco Ciavattawas murdered in front of the party office on January 7, 1978, and the third, Stefano Recchionidied in the riots that followed the police stray bullet killings.
Members of the far-left group Continuous Struggle were suspected of the murders, but they were acquitted of all charges in the trial.
This is a connection to contemporary Italian politics
Italy’s ex-dictator Benito Mussolini supporters founded the Movimento Sociale Italiana party after World War 2 in 1946. The party saw itself as a continuation of Italy’s fascist legacy.
In 1995, the party disappeared from the Italian party map. By then, it had transformed into a conservative right-wing party. The custodians of the legacy of fascism were scattered among different right-wing groups.
Contact with the Prime Minister of Italy by Giorgia Meloni The Brothers of Italy party also exists. Many former supporters of MSI found their new political home in the Brothers of Italy when it was founded in 2012.
The Nazi salute is basically forbidden in Italy
In Italy, there are laws that make, among other things, the Nazi salute a punishable crime. According to the Italian broadcasting company RAI, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court have not interpreted the law in the strictest way.
According to RAI, the decisions on the matter have been contradictory.
Italy’s highest appeals court is currently considering whether the Nazi salute, or “Roman salute” as it is called in Italy, is a crime. The alignment is expected after mid-January.
Some social commentators have stated that Italy never went through its fascist past in the same way that Germany did its Nazi history.
– This could not happen on a German street or a Berlin square, says the commentator of La Repubblica Paolo Berizzi.
How have the politicians reacted
In Italy, the behavior of the neo-fascists is making noise this year also precisely because the current government also enjoys the support of some neo-fascists.
– Rome, 7 January 2024. It feels like 1924, says the leader of the centre-left Democratic Party in his Facebook update Elly Schlein.
Schlein here refers to 1924, because Mussolini cemented his monopoly power once and for all in the elections.
Prime minister Giorgia Meloni has not publicly commented on the event, although the opposition has demanded that he renounce the activities of the neo-fascists.
Italian Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi plays down the fuss. According to him, no one has investigated how many people have died from the activity.
– The memorial service has been somewhat similar every year. Sometimes it has gathered even more people, says Piantedosi.
However, he assessed that the neo-fascists’ opportunity was against customs. However, he does not support the banning of such events.
What other reactions have come
On Wednesday morning, five people who gave the Nazi salute had been charged with a crime.
According to RAI, no decisions have been made yet to start an investigation. Criminal investigators are going through photos and videos from the event to identify the participants.
A member of the party board of the Democratic Party who lives near the place of the memorial service Marta Bonafoni writes in his Facebook update that the seventh days of January haunt the residents.
– We always tell our children: if you go out, go around the place from afar!
Sources: AFP, Reuters
Articles from La Repubblica, Corriere della Sera and RAI served as background sources.